e weapon being
discharged usually by accident, but frequently with suicidal, and
sometimes with homicidal intent.

With all calibres and at all ranges, except actual contact, the wound of
entrance is smaller than the bullet. If the weapon is discharged within
a foot of the body, the skin surrounding the wound is usually stained
with powder and burned, and the hair singed. At ranges varying from six
inches to thirty feet, grains of powder may be found embedded in the
skin or lying loose on the surface, the greater the range the wider
being the area of spread. When black powder is used, the embedded grains
usually leave a permanent bluish-black tattooing of the skin. When the
weapon is placed in contact with the skin, the subcutaneous tissues are
lacerated over an area of two or three inches around the opening made by
the bullet and smoke and powder-staining and scorching are more marked
than at longer ranges.

When the bullet perforates, the exit wound is usually larger and more
extensively lacerated than the wound of entrance. Its margins are as a
rule everted, and it shows no marks of flame, smoke, or powder. These
features are common to all perforations caused by bullets.

Pistol wounds only produce dangerous effects when fired at close range,
and when the cavities of the skull, the thorax, or the abdomen are
implicated. In the abdomen a lethal injury may readily be caused even by
pistols of the "toy" order. These injuries will be described with
regional surgery.

Pistol-shot wounds of _joints_ and _soft parts_ are seldom of serious
import apart from the risk of haemorrhage and of infection.

_Treatment._--The treatment of wounds of the soft parts consists in
purifying the wounds of entrance and exit and the surrounding skin, and
in providing for drainage if this is indicated.

There being no urgency for the removal of the bullet, time should be
taken to have it localised by the X-rays, preferably by stereoscopic
plates. In some cases it is not necessary to remove the bullet.

#Wounds by Sporting Guns.#--In the common sporting or scatter gun, with
which accidents so commonly occur during the shooting season, the charge
of small shot or pellets leave the muzzle of the gun as a solid mass
which makes a single ragged wound having much the appearance of that
caused by a single bullet. At a distance of from four to five feet from
the muzzle the pellets begin to disperse so that there are separate
punctures around t